Tigray rebels accuse Ethiopia forces of major offensive
Tigray rebels accuse Ethiopia forces of major offensive/node/2149186/world
Tigray rebels accuse Ethiopia forces of major offensive
Above, Ethiopian National Defense Force troops ride on a truck in Wichale, Ethiopia during maneuvers against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front on Dec. 31, 2021. (AFP file photo)
Tigray rebels accuse Ethiopia forces of major offensive
Government and rebels locked in a war of words in recent weeks even as both sides have raised the prospect of peace talks to end the war
Updated 24 August 2022
AFP
NAIROBI: Tigray rebels accused Ethiopian government forces and allied militias of launching a “large-scale offensive” against southern Tigray on Wednesday.
There was no immediate response from the Ethiopian government and the claims by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) could not be independently verified as the region is under a communications blackout.
“They launched the offensive early this morning around 5:00 am local time (0200 GMT). We are defending our positions,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said in Nairobi in a brief message.
He said on Twitter that the “large-scale” offensive was launched “against our positions in the southern front” by the Ethiopian army and special forces and militias from the neighboring Amhara region.
The TPLF claims come five months after a truce was declared in the brutal conflict in northern Ethiopia that erupted in November 2020.
On Tuesday, the Ethiopian National Defense Force issued a statement accusing the TPLF of seeking to “defame” the army by claiming government forces were moving toward their positions or shelling them with heavy weapons.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the TPLF have been locked in a war of words in recent weeks even as both sides have raised the prospect of peace talks to end the war.
The two sides disagree on who should lead any negotiations, and the TPLF also insists basic services must be restored to the region of six million people before dialogue can begin.
Three British men being held in Afghanistan: UK non-profit group
Britain’s foreign ministry said the five “had no role in the UK government’s work in Afghanistan and traveled to Afghanistan against the UK government’s travel advice”
Updated 10 sec ago
AFP
LONDON: Three British men have been detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan, UK non-profit group the Presidium Network said on Saturday.
The group said on Twitter it had been “working closely with two of the families.”
“We are working hard to secure consular contact with British nationals detained in Afghanistan and we are supporting families,” the UK’s foreign ministry added in a statement.
Scott Richards of the Presidium Network told Sky News: “We believe they are in good health and being well treated.
“We have no reason to believe they’ve been subject to any negative treatment such as torture and we’re told that they are as good as can be expected in such circumstances.”
There had been “no meaningful contact” between authorities and the two men Presidium is assisting, he added.
These two men are believed to have been held by the Taliban since January.
It is not known how long the third man has been held for.
Media reports named the men as charity medic Kevin Cornwell, 53, an unnamed manager of a hotel for aid workers and YouTube star Miles Routledge.
Presidium on Twitter urged the Taliban to be “considerate of what we believe is a misunderstanding and release these men.”
Last year the Taliban freed a veteran television cameraman and four other British nationals it had held for six months.
Peter Jouvenal was one of a “number” of Britons that the government in London said had been held by the hard-line Islamists.
Britain’s foreign ministry said the five “had no role in the UK government’s work in Afghanistan and traveled to Afghanistan against the UK government’s travel advice.”
“This was a mistake,” it added.
At the time, Afghanistan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid accused the Britons of “carrying out activities against the country’s laws and traditions of the people of Afghanistan.”
“After consecutive meetings between the IEA (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) and Britain the said persons were released... and handed over to their home country,” he said.
“They promised to abide by the laws of Afghanistan, its traditions and culture of the people and not to violate them again,” he added.
The Taliban returned to power in August 2021 and has since sparked global outrage with its policies in particular toward women and girls.
Protesters face off in Kyiv as clergyman’s home raided
The hearing was initially adjourned as Pavlo complained of health issues but later resumed, with the court ordering a 60-day house arrest
Updated 21 min 38 sec ago
AFP
KYIV, Ukraine: Protesters faced off outside a historic monastery in the Ukrainian capital on Saturday after the home of a leading clergyman was raided by the security services.
Metropolitan Pavlo of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of links with Moscow despite renouncing them, was called in for questioning on charges of inciting religious hatred.
The SBU security service said Pavlo is suspected of “justifying and denying the aggression by the Russian army against Ukraine and of glorifying its members” as well as “violating the equality of citizens on racial, national, regional and religious grounds.”
“The law and the responsibility for violating it are the same for everyone and a cassock is no guarantee of pure intentions,” SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk said in a statement, accusing Russia of using religion “to promote propaganda and divide Ukrainian society.”
The SBU said it had raided the home of Pavlo, who was later taken to court for a hearing to decide whether or not he should be detained, an AFP reporter saw.
The hearing was initially adjourned as Pavlo complained of health issues but later resumed, with the court ordering a 60-day house arrest.
He will have to wear an electronic surveillance device and “refrain from communicating with witnesses” as the inquiry continues, it said.
The development comes three days after the expiry of a deadline for an eviction order from Ukrainian authorities for the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who live in a part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery.
The monks have said they will stay as long as possible at the site, an ancient golden-domed complex overlooking the Dnipro River that is the country’s most significant Orthodox monastery.
Dozens of Church supporters, including clergymen, could be seen outside the monastery on Saturday, waving religious symbols and praying in front of a small group of opponents.
The Pechersk monastery and other Church premises were raided last year by security services over suspected links to Russian agents.
The country also has an Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a separate institution that is entirely independent from Moscow.
In a video statement broadcast by Ukrainian media earlier on Saturday, Pavlo denied supporting the Russian invasion.
“They say I support the aggression of Russia against Ukraine. I have said, I say and I will say: I condemn all attacks on our state and what Russia and Putin have done is unjustifiable,” he said.
High time to emphasize positive side of migration, IOM chief Antonio Vitorino tells Arab News
Benefits of human flows often overlooked amid polarizing debate, according to director general of International Organization for Migration
Vitorino made the comments on the occasion of International Dialogue on Migration, a contribution of IOM to the upcoming 2023 SDG Summit
Updated 17 min 51 sec ago
Ephrem Kossaify
NEW YORK CITY: Migration is as old as humanity itself. Like birds, human beings are said to be a migratory species. Across all eras of human history, they have been inclined to wander away from home, driven by various motives, but always with some idea of a better life.
While migration has emerged as a prominent international and national policy issue, the public discourse on migrants has increasingly become polarized. The toxicity of the migration debate has intensified over the past few years, with the politics of fear and division setting the tone for discussions.
Extremist politicians around the world deploy disruption and disinformation as tools to retain power, exploiting migrants for far-right xenophobic agendas.
Migrants from the Middle East and Asia receiving provisions at a migrant camp operated by the International Organization for Migrations near the Bosnian town of Bihac
in 2021. (AFP file)
Amid often negatively skewed discussions on migration and migrants, the many ways in which migrants contribute to societies is often overlooked. One can lose sight of the dynamism of migrants globally. They are overrepresented in innovation and patents, arts and sciences awards, start-ups and successful companies.
Antonio Vitorino aimed to bring these contributions to the forefront at the International Dialogue on Migration, or IDM, a biannual event that took place in New York on March 30-31, as part of the International Organization for Migration’s contribution to the 2023 SDG Summit in September.
The event brought together governments, youth representatives, civil society, local authorities and community representatives, UN agencies and experts to assess how the positive impacts of human mobility can be harnessed to attain the SDGs.
IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino says that while migration brings challenges, it is also a catalyst for economic growth. (AFP file)
“Migration is a fact of life. There have always been migrants everywhere,” Vitorino, a Portuguese lawyer and politician who took over as the director-general of IOM in October 2018, said during an interview with Arab News in New York City.
“We are very much used to seeing migration as a problem. There are challenges to migration, I don’t deny that. But I think the time has come for us to be more adamant in emphasizing the positive side of migration.”
FASTFACTS
Currently, there are about 281 million living in a country other than their countries of birth, or 3.6 percent of the global population — that is, only 1 in 30 people.
More than 100 million of those were forcibly displaced by conflict, persecution, poverty, climate disaster.
Most frequently, reasons underpinning migration are a complex combination of altered rainfall, armed conflict and a failure of government institutions and support.
Out of the 15 most vulnerable countries to climate change, 13 are witnessing an armed conflict.
The list of contributions of migrants is long indeed.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, who was on the front line?” Vitorino said. “Who was delivering the services and the food while many societies were locked out? Migrants were there on the front line.
“Look to the health system. Even in the developed world, many of the health care workers are migrants or of migrant origin.
“And I do believe that migrants have a key role to play as entrepreneurs. You know, when someone migrates, there is a strong will of winning, of confronting the new environment and making the best for the migrant, for the family, but also for the society in which they are working.
“They are workers. They are consumers. They pay taxes. And this positive side of migration is not very often highlighted.”
Money sent home by migrants is a significant part of international capital flows. Remittances compete with international aid as one of the largest financial inflows to developing countries.
According to the World Bank, they are playing a large role in contributing to economic growth and to the livelihoods of many countries.
About $800 billion are transferred by migrants each year directly to families or communities in their countries of origin. This number does not capture unrecorded flows, so the magnitude of global remittances is likely to be much larger. They are often a lifeline for the poorest households, allowing them to meet their basic needs.
“There are countries where 10 percent, 20 percent, even 30 percent of their GDP depend on the remittances from the migrants and the diaspora,” said Vitorino.
“And now with the war in Ukraine and the (resultant) rise in food prices, remittances are used by the families in the countries of origin, mainly to buy food, (and pay for) education and housing.”
“So, it’s a contribution to the social stability and to the development of the countries of origin.
“But we are not just talking about money. We’re talking about something much, much more important, which is the link between the diaspora and the countries of origin: Family relations, friends. Migrants that come back to the country of origin, even for a limited period of a few months, transfer knowledge to their countries, expertise, and sometimes even technology.
“And that two-way flow is very positive also for the development of the countries of origin.”
IOM is attempting to make the case for integrating migrants into host societies. Vitorino acknowledges the complexity of the issue, which requires public policies, the engagement of civil society and local authorities. It involves the workplace, the school for the children, access to health and social security services.
“That is always challenging,” he said, “but that is where you win integration, and you take the best of migrants to the development of the host communities.”
Economic impacts vary across countries. And while migration brings challenges, there is broad consensus among economists that immigration is also a catalyst for economic growth and confers net benefits on destination countries as well.
In 2015, people on the move contributed more than 9 percent, or $6.7 trillion, to global GDP.
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic, involving drastic restrictions on freedom of movement all around the world, has resulted in an unprecedented decrease in world trade and economic growth.
That demonstrated that “if there is no human mobility, there will be a negative impact on economic growth. That’s why migration is very much aligned with different SDGs.”
The potential role of migrants in achieving the UN SDGs cannot be underestimated, IDM says.
Leaving no one behind being key to it, the 2030 SDGs agenda represented a major leap forward for migration where the latter figured not merely as a core development issue on its own, but also as a cross-cutting one that is intricately related to all other goals.
Vitorino said that the pandemic, for instance, demonstrated that excluding migrants from health coverage — SDG 3 being ensuring health and well-being for all — creates a problem for the entire community because the virus will tend to proliferate in those marginalized migrant communities.
“Therefore, I think that the SDGs are a key guideline for us all. (On) the question of health coverage, it is very important that we guarantee that wherever they are, in countries of origin or countries of destination, migrants have access to health care. This is a fundamental right. It is inherent to the dignity of human beings irrespective of their legal status.”
Despite IOM’s efforts, “unfortunately, there is still a very uneven panorama about vaccination. The developed world has rates of vaccination around 70 percent and the low-income countries are still around 20 percent. This is an issue of concern to us. And this definitely something that does not help to fulfill the objectives of the 2030 agenda,” said Vitorino.
He visited Turkiye to oversee the organization’s operations following the Feb. 6 twin earthquakes; he said he had never seen anything like it.
“Nothing I’ve been in, theaters of war, even recently in Ukraine, (compares with) the degree of destruction and devastation that I witnessed in Turkiye.
“I see a city of 200,000 people totally smashed by the fury of the earthquake. The fury of nature should make us think very carefully about the frequency and the intensity of these natural hazards that are also related to climate change.”
It is difficult to isolate climate factors from other social, economic, political and security ones underpinning migration.
Climate change intersects also with conflict and security. The Syrian civil war, where exceptional drought contributed to population movements toward urban areas that were not addressed by the political regime, illustrates this connection.
The World Bank estimates that 143 million people could be moving within their own countries by 2050 because of extreme weather events in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, in the absence of urgent global and national climate action.
Researchers highlight that an increase in temperatures could lead to growing asylum applications to the EU.
Drought and desertification, heat waves and sea-level rise will cause depletion of ecosystems ranging from water shortages to loss of arable land, leading to conflicts over scare natural resources. The threats to human security might in turn drive people to migrate in search of alternative income and ways to meet their basic needs.
“Sometimes you have people displaced because of drought, and (others) because of floods, at the same time, in the same country,” said Vitorino.
“Look to Central America where the El Nino is changing the production of coffee and cocoa and people are deprived of their traditional agricultural means. They move to the cities. And if they don’t find solutions in the cities, they go on moving, usually toward the United States.
“My theory is to say we need to act to build the adaptation and resilience of those communities because they do not want to move. They are forced to move. And we need to support them to find the means of adapting to climate change.
“And also if they are forced to move, such as, for instance, in some Pacific islands that are going to unfortunately disappear because of sea-level rise, we need to make it safe, orderly and regular.”
IOM estimates that since 2014, about 55,000 migrants have died or disappeared. Of those, about 8,000 were en route to the US. They perished in accidents or while traveling in subhuman conditions.
The fire that killed dozens of people at an immigration processing center in Ciudad Juarez on the border with Texas on the night of March 27 was only the latest chapter in a continuing tragedy. A surveillance video has shown immigration agents walking away from the trapped detainees as the flames were engulfing them.
In 2022, 2,062 migrants died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Between 2014 and 2018, for instance, the bodies of about 12,000 people who drowned were never found.
Vitorino laments the recent increase seen in the number of irregular migrants moving around the world.
“We need to have a holistic approach to these movements and understand that you cannot just deal with one of the reasons without taking into consideration the other reasons,” he said, adding that “the need to preserve human lives and prevent deaths is a priority.”
IDM, he said, will provide conclusions that will feed into the report of the secretary general next year about the implementation of the Global Compact on Migration.
“We need evidence-based policies based on reliable and effective data. We need to guarantee the role of youth, particularly in the fight against climate change. We need to make sure that migrants are fully included in the health coverage, a critical issue to succeed in the SDGs.
“And we need to mobilize the diaspora to the development of the countries of origin.
“Those are the key messages that I hope from the IDM.”
Republicans defend Trump by attacking criminal justice system
Critics warn the present partisan rhetoric could shake public trust in courts
Updated 01 April 2023
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Many Republicans in the US Congress have responded to Donald Trump’s looming Tuesday arraignment by characterizing the criminal justice system as corrupt, in accusations that parallel their earlier broadsides against the nation’s elections after the former president’s 2020 defeat.
Trump and his allies in the House of Representatives and Senate have used rhetoric that echoed his false claims of widespread election fraud in the build-up to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.
Critics warn that the present partisan rhetoric could shake public trust in courts by undermining the institutional legitimacy of the criminal justice system.
“Trump’s indictment is the culmination of six years of the Democrats weaponizing law enforcement to target and persecute their political enemies. Dictatorships operate like this – the US is supposed to be different,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz, a hard-line Republican who voted to overturn 2020 election results.
FASTFACT
Most Democrats have warned against challenging the legitimacy of the institutions of government in defense of Trump, who routinely pushed up against the guard rails of democracy during his four years in the White House and was twice impeached by Congress.
Trump says he is innocent of the expected New York charges — which revolve around hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. Details of the charges are as yet unclear.
He says the investigation and three other probes involving his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House are all politically motivated.
Most Democrats have warned against challenging the legitimacy of the institutions of government in defense of Trump, who routinely pushed up against the guard rails of democracy during his four years in the White House and was twice impeached by Congress.
“Political leaders ought to stand up for the American system of government,” said Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House Judiciary Committee who also served on the congressional investigation of the Jan. 6 attack.
“Undercutting the system of government is a serious matter and a threat to our future,” she said in an interview.
Trump has been unrestrained in his rhetoric in recent weeks, calling for protests and warning of potential “death & destruction” if he were to be charged.
He used fiery language hours before his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, in a bid to overturn his election defeat. Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after that riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. The Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage.
Most Republicans have trained their invective on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accusing the prosecutor of mounting a politically motivated investigation aimed at preventing Trump from being reelected to the White House in 2024.
After Trump on March 18 announced that he expected to be arrested in days, the Republican-controlled House launched its own probe of Bragg’s grand jury investigation, seeking documents and testimony. They have called Bragg’s move “an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority” and said the indictment followed years of the office searching for any basis on which to bring charges.
Democrats questioned whether Congress has the authority to investigate a state-level investigation, particularly one conducted under secretive grand jury rules.
Bragg, a Democrat, on Friday warned Republican Representatives Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil, who are leading the probe, against attacking the criminal justice system.
“You and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump’s efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges,” the Manhattan prosecutor wrote.
House Republicans continued to push back. Firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene said she planned to protest against Trump’s court appearance on Tuesday, while Brian Mast went further and told CNN he would not accept the outcome of a jury trial, saying “I don’t have a trust that a jury will make a fair assessment of this.”
Not all Republicans were so quick to cast doubt on the courts.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson issued a statement that called for patience and underscored the legal principle that Trump, as a defendant, should be presumed innocent.
“We need to wait on the facts and for our American system of justice to work like it does for thousands of Americans every day,” said Hutchinson, who is considering his own 2024 White House run.
Historians including Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer said Republican statements about Bragg and the criminal justice system follow a long-established partisan line.
“The party has invested a great deal in attacking the legitimacy of institutions, which is why Trump fit well into the party and continues to be popular,” Zelizer said in an email.
Nicole Hemmer, director of the Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, warned that Republican attacks on the US criminal justice system could ultimately have dire consequences for courts and juries.
“This is the end-game of the ‘deep state’ rhetoric that Donald Trump has deployed since 2016 to sow those seeds of distrust in institutions of accountability,” Hemmer said.
“We haven’t yet seen a cataclysmic moment in this rejection of the courts. But we are starting to see the steps toward it, as we saw the steps toward Jan. 6 coming from a long way off.”
Burkina Faso Muslims and Christians back unity amid insurgency
Thousands have been killed and over 2 million displaced across the Sahel region south of the Sahara, where militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda and Daesh have exploited ethnic and religious divides to fuel violence
Updated 01 April 2023
Reuters
OUAGADOUGOU: Scores of young Burkinabe Muslims and Christians gathered in Ouagadougou’s public square as the sun set to break fast together, promoting religious tolerance during Ramadan and Lent as Burkina Faso grapples with a violent insurgency.
Organized by a local interfaith youth group, the event saw Muslims and Christians sharing food and prayers in a symbolic act against militant forces seeking to exploit ethnic and religious divisions, participants said.
“If two groups from different religions manage to live together, many evils in the society will be totally over,” said Wenkouni Damien Ouedraogo, a Catholic and one of the event’s chief organizers.
“We must go beyond our religions to be able to embrace the other as really a part of oneself,” he added.
Burkina Faso is one of several West African countries battling an insurgency that took root in neighboring Mali and has spread across the region in the past decade.
Thousands have been killed and over 2 million displaced across the Sahel region south of the Sahara, where militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda and Daesh have exploited ethnic and religious divides to fuel violence.
Around 64 percent of Burkinabes adhere to Islam, while around 24 percent identify as Christians, according to a 2019 government census.
“To those who unfortunately took up arms against the country, we hope that our message of hope can soften their hearts,” said Mamadi Ouedraogo, one of the event’s Muslim organizers. “This is for our well-being, our development and for peace and security in our country.”
